Two Minutes and Twenty One Seconds ✔

Authors Note - My entry for the Romance How They Met contest. I recommend clicking on the video, pressing repeat and turning it up loud :)

Word Count: 2996

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Two Minutes and Twenty One Seconds

26th May, 1994

Sherwood, Portland OR

"Oh sweetie, you're not going dressed like that are you?"

My mom's words might not have stung so much if I hadn't spent all week sewing together my flannel patchwork baby doll dress. A little less disappointing if I hadn't of been up till the morning of prom night finishing it.

The sheer look of horror on my sister's face, as if all her worst fears have come to life watching me navigate the stairs, does nothing to improve my sour mood.

Mom fumbles to pull out the creases round the hem of the dress. "Are you sure you don't want to try a different dress? Something more suitable and ladylike?" She eyes up the ladders already forming in my tights, showing skin.

"I'm sure." I pretend to smile, and adjust the papier-mâché corsage round my wrist I'd made from album inlay sleeves.

My mom sighs and I remind her that at least I'm going, like she wishes. So I can pretend to be like all the others - the Debbie's and the Donnas super psyched with their dates and satin pink dresses for the biggest night of their small suburban lives.

"That's not even a real prom dress." Beth laughs.

Again I fake a smile, give them a twirl. The heavy soles of my boots dig into the cream shag carpet as I do. I imagine my dad laughing at such a sight, how he'd take my hand to spin me round until everything faded into a hazy blur. He'd encourage me to mess my hair up a little, live on the wild side.

Beth cocks her head to the side, hair falling to her bare belly. "I totally blame Dad for this. He's such a bad influence."

Mom pushes me to the door, takes a picture, then hurries us both along, still picking at the loose threads, the fraying dress hem, and the tangled kinks in my fringe.

As we leave I check my make up in the mirror, give the dark eyeliner a quick smudge for courage and head out to the lawn. Without my mom or Beth knowing, I tuck the Walkman player I've left in the car close to my chest and sneak down low in the back seat along with all the nervous energy and distain, the quiet shame at being driven to prom by my mom, in our rusty station wagon.

When we roll out the driveway, I ask for one of Dad's old cassette mixes to be played, and Beth holds her hands up to her ears as the distortion and grinding riffs kick in. She groans all the way to the school parking lot.

Back before Dad moved out- when he'd take us out for a spin in his truck, rolling down the windows so the whole neighbourhood could hear the pounding, brutal crush of drums as we drove by, Beth would squirm in embarrassment, and stick her fingers in her ears until we got home.

Before he left, and took all the good vinyl and memories with him, I'd sit in my room and play an endless loop of all the albums I'd collected, and those he'd loaned me over the years.

Dad's lasting love for music - raw and real, heavy and soaked in sweat and social distortion helped me escape from the world - if only for two minutes, twenty one seconds. To just get lost in electrifying howls and the passionate way words could be sung and speak to my soul.

And when the girls at school broke into my locker again and destroyed all the tapes left in my backpack, Dad came to my room and sat with me, and he listened to the endless loop of crushing, ferocious noise until I felt like myself again.